Photos from City of Tamarac, collage by New Times
Audio By Carbonatix
While the sounds of The Beatles and dulcet doo-wops rocked Tamarac residents at a 2024 Oldies in the Park concert, Mayor Michelle Gomez was busy violating a vendor’s First Amendment rights, according to an investigation by the Broward Office of Inspector General (OIG).
Released last week, the investigation stemmed from a complaint arguing that Gomez violated a vendor’s First Amendment rights by forbidding him from selling Kamala Harris shirts at Mainlands Park in September 2024, months before the presidential election. OIG, which investigates claims of government wrongdoing in Broward County, interviewed city employees and Gomez, ultimately deciding their excuses were flawed and disproven by their own interviews.
The issue began when a city employee approached Gomez at the event to ask if salesman Alex Council had authorization to sell political shirts at the city event.
Council was selling shirts that read “She has always had my back and now I have hers. #KamalaHarris2024,” in pink and blue. Gomez and city employees’ chief argument, which she would change during the investigation, was rooted in the notion that political shirt sales were against the tone of the event.
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According to the city’s website, the concert featured oldies hits from Motown artists, The Beatles, and The Beach Boys, all of which have famous songs about political issues like the Vietnam War, Civil Rights, and elections. The Beach Boys recently dipped their toes back into political theater in 2017 when they played a string of events for Donald Trump.
City employees and Gomez argued that selling shirts for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris violated the spirit of the event. The mayor’s solution? She asked Council to offer “Oldies in the Park” patrons the products he usually peddles: plant-based period pads. No, we’re not kidding.
Inspector General Carol Breece’s 77-page report recounts the evening in tedious detail, including a veritable crime-scene map similar to those released after political assassinations. Gomez’s attorney, Benedict Kuehne, pushed back in a seven-page defense, which Breece included in her report, arguing that it included unnecessary, one-sided, unsupported, and inflammatory headings that accused Gomez of wrongdoing and violating a resident’s Constitutional rights.
Gomez argued the city forbids the sale of political products, despite no actual ordinance on the books giving the city any such power, according to the report. “Neither the mayor nor any city representative has cited any valid, content-neutral policy or compelling government interest to justify the action, making the restraint presumptively unconstitutional under both federal and Florida law,” according to the report.
But during the course of OIG’s investigation, Gomez argued that she actually tried to kick Council out because he wasn’t an approved vendor for this specific event. OIG noted, however, that neither Gomez nor city staff raised the lack of pre-approval as an issue during extensive interviews.
“In fact, the mayor said she told the vendor he could sell his usual ‘period’ products but not the T-shirts supporting a political candidate,” according to the report.
“The government action in prohibiting a vendor’s sale of political T-shirts, which prohibition was based solely on the T-shirt’s content, amounted to content-based regulation of protected speech at a traditional public forum or limited public forum,” according to the report’s conclusion.
Gomez initially texted New Times saying she’d provide a response to the report on Tuesday, but didn’t offer a statement by press time.
